


Pretty in Purple

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daddy!John, Depression, Emotional Roller Coaster, Eventual Smut, I have a plan I promise, It gets better I promise, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Thoughts, beard!john, depressed!John, eventual daddy kink, lots of swearing, rigger!john, rope kink, stripper!lock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25892911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: john watson has been alone for two years in the flat that sherlock holmes left him in, struggling to find how to live without his mad genius flatmate and friend.sherlock comes home, bring with him scars and a secret .(eventual smut, eventual daddy kink, eventual rope kink)
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Life Without Him

John is not happy. Not in the slightest. 

He’s pissed. That is not uncommon anymore. He’s been between pissed and *ahem* a bit sad (depressed, but he will punch anyone who says it) for the past two years. He has the right to be pissed - his best friend went and jumped off a damn roof while they were on the bloody phone. Who does that? Sherlock bloody Holmes, that’s who. 

The goddamn idiot who gets tunnel vision when on a case to the point where he has no regard for his own safety. 

But then, he can’t blame Sherlock for taking the easy way out. It wasn’t like him, sure, but it’s not as if John hadn’t thought about it. Hell, if it weren’t for the mad genius he would have done it a long time ago. Once the berk went and offed himself, John had gotten close again. It seemed someone would conveniently show up to “just say hello” whenever he was at his worst (definitely some meddling by a certain older brother who deserves a good left hook to the nose quite soon). 

Still, though… Sherlock was never the type to care about his public image. He never even admitted he had one out loud (unless he was either so sleep deprived that John had to practically carry him to bed or tipsy, never drunk though because that would be “a hindrance to my brain”). All that used to have John wondering why the hell he would do this. 

Sherlock had to know John cared about him, right? Sure, he had been very aggressively pressing down his attraction to his former flatmate since the whole “married to my work” spiel at Angelo’s, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t been showing Sherlock that he cared, right?

Maybe not… maybe Sherlock really was the High-Functioning Sociopath that he claims to be… No. Nope. Not possible. John knows him. He knows that man is almost the very definition of empathy. It doesn’t take a genius to see it in everything Sherlock has done for John. Mr. “always works alone” has found his “one friend.” He has to know. Or, had to have known… 

Damn. He’d forgotten for a second. He’d managed to put himself back in two years ago when he lived with the infuriating prick that was his best friend. It hadn’t been hard when he was going on such a rant in his head. Not an uncommon occurrence, that. 

All that mess aside, John had actually been doing decently enough since… yeah. There was a while where he didn’t sleep because he was too busy trying to figure out why the hell Sherlock would do that, then there were a few times where he was apparently gone for a day or two only to be later told by Greg that he had been blackout drunk and ended up at Sherlock’s grave with his gun in one hand and phone in the other, wrapped in the Bellstaff that Sherlock had died in (Greg had let him keep it from the crime scene after he got it photographed and dry cleaned) and calling Greg to give him a similar speech to what John had gotten from Sherlock. 

For a while, John was in his self-proclaimed “man whore” phase (sleeping with any woman he could find and then going out the next night to find another) before transitioning smoothly into mid-life crisis mode, when be bought a sports car that he ended up keeping for about three days before Mrs. Hudson came back from her sister’s and John couldn’t use her garage anymore and John was forced to return it. 

So yeah. John is doing wonderfully. Currently, he’s in his healthiest mindset yet. He’s beginning to maybe move on from it. He’d put in extra hours and effort at his GP job since the whole sports care fiasco and had gotten promoted. He’s thinking of starting to actually date instead of just sleeping around - there’s this nice nurse who seems to fancy him who always works near his office even though she is a surgical scrub nurse.


	2. The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this chapter includes a lot of suicidal thoughts 
> 
> please do not read if you are not in a good headspace

That “healthy mindset” quickly went to shit. He asked the nurse - Mary - out for dinner, and they went, but John spent the whole time miserable. He hadn’t been on a real date (as in not a short meeting in a café before going to her flat for a shag) since The Fall, as he dubbed it. So, he had arrived early to calm his nerves, had a drink before she arrived, spent the whole dinner feeling bad for a reason he has yet to figure out, drank some more, and left her with the check and a brief “this was nice, thank you” as soon as she declined the dessert menu from the waiter. 

He should feel bad, he realizes, but he can’t find it in himself to truly care. 

She didn’t deserve that, he keeps telling himself. You couldn’t have been normal just long enough to not get in deep shit with most likely the entire office? Nope, just had to go and ruin it. Good job, Watson. 

That night, he drinks some more. He had been trying to lay off, but this night brought up so much more confusing feelings than he expected and he felt the only way to handle that was, as any British male will tell you, push it down deep inside and see if you can drown it in alcohol. 

This time, the drunken phone call wasn’t to Greg. Greg would only worry and come over or send someone over to make sure he didn't blow his brains out and look at him with so much pity and the more recent confusion and frustration. He knows he should be better by now, and he thought he was. But then he had to go and try to do the done thing and fucked it up. Anyway, all this was to say that this time, he called Sherlock. 

Yes, sober him is aware that Sherlock won’t pick up. Sober him is also aware that it is very likely that someone else has Sherlock’s old number and will not take kindly to a teary drunk man ranting to his dead crush in a voicemail, but he’s not sober right now. So he calls. 

It’s not shocking that the number goes straight to voicemail. But its only then that he realizes he has no clue what to say. 

“Hey. Um. I don’t know why I’m calling. I guess today was just a shit day and I can’t tell Greg why because then I'll have to explain a whole bunch that he isn’t meant to hear and he’ll come over here and stop me, but still. Sher- *deep breath* Sherlock. Please. Come home. I need you. It’s been hell without you and I don’t think you know how much I need you. Please, Sherlock. Come back to me. I don’t know how to be without you. I can’t keep doing it. I tried. Hell, people keep telling me I’m doing well for myself. I’m not. I couldn’t go for dinner for a date without you spending the whole time in my head and ruining it. Dammit. Why did you have to leave? Why? ...Just, please Sherlock. Please come home to me. I can’t do it without you anymore.”

He ends the call feeling even worse than before. Christ, he can’t even manage a bloody phone call without announcing how shitty he is. He gets up from the floor of the sitting room that he can’t remember ending up on and goes to the kitchen for another drink. 

I’m doomed. He can’t come back dumbass, he’s dead. did you forget that? He killed himself and now you want to be a pussy and do the same. God, you should have done it before you even met him. Then you wouldn’t be suffering now; you’d be dead. 

John knows its not fair to think these things. There are still people that care. Mrs. H would be devastated. Greg… well, Greg would eventually be fine but it would be tough to get there. Harry wouldn’t know the difference until she got the call from the hospital or morgue or whatever. His mom is dead, his dad probably is by now too, so he won’t be missed there. 

Every time you get close, Big Brother steps in to stop you. Hmmm… Well I guess you’ll have to be smarter about it this time. 

He’ll wait until he sobers up (at this rate it may be a day or two), give the surgery his two weeks notice, deal with whoever Mycroft sends to check on him shortly after, then start planning. If he starts planning before then, one of Mycroft’s goons will know. So, he has the beginnings of a plan. Step one will probably be the hardest, considering he’s already pouring another drink. Must be his fifth? Sixth? Who knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is very very dark. I promise it will get better.


End file.
